AHRMA Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes; October 11, 2021

The last 2021 meeting of the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA) was called to order at 08:10 A.M. by Arthur Kowitz (Chairman of the Board).

Attendees

Curt Comer (Executive Director), Arthur Kowitz (Chairman), Kelly Shane (Secretary), Rob Poole, Albert Newmann, Jim Korn, Brian Larrabure (Treasurer), Beno Rodi, Luke Sayer, Kevin Burns, Cindy McLean (Recorder)

Absent Trustees

Jason Colon, Fred Guidi, Tim Terrell

Non-Trustees

Alex McLean, Maggie Shane, Al Andenberg, Terri Korn, Debbie Poole, Dewanna Comer, Lisi Bratcher, Brian and Kim Sharp, Robbie Weins, Ty Wilson, Glenn Gallimore, Pat Wilkening

Membership Report (delivered by Arthur Kowitz)

Over the course of the year, membership has increased an average of 40 members a month.  Luke Sayer is the unofficial membership group leader.  It was found that the few memberships gained by having a membership booth at the two AHRMA Classic MotoFest™ events didn’t justify the cost.  AHRMA is now using self-service kiosks, rack cards and other marketing tools at all events.  The rack card can be distributed electronically and printed locally.  Arthur distributed decks of rack cards to the attendees.

Meeting Minutes were approved (HMP – 2021 BoT Mtg #2) (Motion to approve Kevin Burns, second Brian Larrabure, 8 accepted, BR rejected).

Financial Reports (Curt Comer/Brian Larrabure)

Curt reported on the current financial state of AHRMA.

  • Profit & Loss –
    • $1.4m Gross Income
    • YTD expenses $1.5m
    • Net Loss $132k (unadjusted for EOY allocations)

Our sponsorship income so far for 2022 is $60k. There has already been an uptick in sponsorships for 2022.  This weekend Underground Team Racing and Kansas811 came on board as National Safety Sponsor for an investment of $20K.  Almost all Road Race class sponsorships were sold this past weekend.  Sponsorship efforts haven’t started for Off-road yet. AFS will be securing sponsorships on our behalf for MotoFests and with a lowball estimate of $50K.

There has been a lot of investment in reviving the dirt track program.

Our reserve fund is at $75K, the Benevolent Fund $175K.

Brian shared the initiatives that Jim Doyle has been involved in as Business Development Manager and how he has organized the sponsorship efforts.  Curt pointed out Paul Elledge has headed up the social media marketing initiative increasing AHRMA’s visibility.

Because of COVID, 2021 Sponsorship income was applied to the 2020 budget.

Jim Korn mentioned a couple of sponsors did not have memberships and were unhappy that they did not receive timely notifications.  Curt shared that this has become part of the Sponsorship process, and Jim Doyle will ensure that all sponsors have at minimum an associate membership.

Luke Sayer asked for clarification on if we were closer to a break-even year which Curt provided.  Curt believes we are close to a “break-even” year.  Daytona registration will be opening soon, and we expect that will provide additional cash flow to get us through the winter.

Kevin asked about our costs for MSR registrations.  Curt reported that we are currently paying 5% fee on all transactions processed through MSR.

Kevin motioned to accept the financials as reported, Kelly seconded, and the motion was unanimously accepted.

Chairman Updates (Arthur Kowitz)

Business philosophy

AHRMA’s business philosophy has been informal in years past, with respect to our marketing, branding, and esteem in motorcycling world.  EC / ED had a vision 3 years ago. The 1st year we evaluate where we are and formalize things, the 2nd year would be the transition year, and the 3rd year we would experience growth and profit.  Because of COVID19, our 3-year program turned into 4-year program.  Part of the transition would have shown some excess pocket money.  We chose to take discretionary money to invest in sponsorships/marketing.  We have built equity in our future.  We hired AFS, and a sales professional (Jim Doyle), and in addition, most of our photography, race recaps, press releases, etc. are all done by AHRMA members.

Dirt track program

Arthur took the lead to re-energize our Dirt Track program 1 year ago.  The development plan has been laid out and is being executed.  We are poised for next year.  Social media is starting to show a difference with an increased AHRMA buzz.

Membership

Luke Sayer is on point.  Taking advantage of the talent at AHRMA is key to these successes.

  • Luke Sayer is on point for membership growth.  Taking advantage of the talent at AHRMA is key to these successes.
  • Luke Sayer – Performance sells membership.  The volunteers and workers make that possible.  We have 3000 potential sales force (members) who could distribute magazines to Doctor’s office, to friends etc.
  • Arthur – we had placards on golf carts promoting all our MotoFests to the Barber spectators.
  • Curt pointed out that Off-Road had signage promoting the Off-Road events at Barber resulting in a significant increase in spectators.  This was Graham Foster’s idea.
  • Curt Comer – several thousand MotoFest 2022 rack cards were distributed during the course of the weekend.
  • Zoom Motorsports promotes the event and gets the revenue.  The question is, how do we convert festival goers to AHRMA members?  We are invested in our AHRMA Classic MotoFest using rack cards, lots of signage, including a banner at spectator check-in and RR tech.
  • Live-streaming Broadcast with professional announcers.

Arthur shared that member Dan May was able to fix the issues we had preventing us from doing live streaming, which was a huge success for the Barber Festival. Dan has also improved and streamlined generation of series points for RR, and our contingency reporting, etc.

Targeted Facebook Post Boosts

Curt pointed out that he and Cindy have been doing targeted post boosts on FB to reach non-members.

Discipline Crossover

Arthur shared that for Barber, there was a lot of cross over between RR & OR, reflecting the benefit of the 1-AHRMA philosophy we adopted when Curt came on board.

Composition of Barber Road Race entries were as follows:

  • 8% of entries were RR Next Gen (those bikes are 25 years old) (4% modern/4% vintage)
  • 54% of entries pure vintage
  • 48% of entries Modern

Vintage Cup Program

The 500 Premier featured class for the Vintage Cup was hugely successful, with the last race weekend of the year deciding the championship.  Jim Korn pointed out that prior to 2019, we struggled to get entries for 350GP and this year at Barber there were 15 pre-entries.  Brian added that before 500 Premier was highlighted, we struggled to get 3 entries, and had 18 at Barber.

Arthur suggested that Off-Road put together a similar program because it works!  We can’t completely stop attrition but shining a spotlight has made a difference.

Dick Mann Team Challenge

We changed logistics this year allowing each team to drop their low scorer to avoid teams being eliminated if someone had to stop racing at the beginning of the year.

Currently the team is composed of 1 rider for each discipline.  The team composition has encouraged and fostered cross discipline relationships.    Sidecars will be added as a 6th element (“discipline”), which will happen in 2022.  Curt was a proponent of this program since Dick Mann was a founder of AHRMA and honoring Dick Mann was key.  It was fitting the inaugural year was the year that he passed.

The Dick Mann Team Challenge class has not yet been identified for 2022.

Member Comment Period

  1. Brian & Kim Sharp, Boulder Motorsports, Boulder, CO. Brian thanked the trustees for everything that they do and that they love being a part of the organization, bringing new customers and members in.  AHRMA is a great platform to showcase to their customers.  We go to great tracks;  it’s run very well.  This was the smoothest run Barber event in the 12 years that I have been attending.  Parking / Passes – everything went well.  Kevin Burns said Michelle reported only 2 complaints regarding parking and paddock reservations.
  2. Terri Korn, New Port Ritchie, FL. Complimented the AHRMA MAG and asked if there is a way to opt-out in multiple racer families.  It was shared that there is an opt-out feature when members are renewing their memberships.
  3. Dewanna Comer, Elora, TN. Dewanna shared that this Barber event could not have come together without the staff that is in place.  The stage has been set for 2022.  AHRMA has collected rules for paddock reservations that will help us to apply the parameters equally and fairly across the membership.

Brian added that by digitizing the whole area, we really have a better understanding of how many paddock spaces we have, and we were able to use previously unused space.  Jim Doyle sold sponsorships which included booth space on level 4 and sold out of all available spaces.

Dewanna said notes will be collected into our Dropbox so that if there are staffing changes, this information will have been captured for future use.

Brian talked about the MotoFests and how we have established a baseline with a template starting with 15 attendees on zoom meetings for HMP, reduced to 6-7 for Laguna Seca, and for Barber we had a handful.  The communications for Daytona are to those responsible for specific activities.  We are in a position to do a warm handoff.

Dewanna continued by sharing how we marketed AHRMA at Barber.  Advertising included having a banner will-call, so every person who came in were exposed to our MotoFests banner.  The events were talked up, and cards were distributed to spectators.  It’s truly been a team effort, and she wanted to acknowledge everyone who had a part in it.

  1. Rob Poole asked Brian Sharp if there was a way to get more interest in vintage racing.  Brian works on Next Gen bikes but is not averse to doing vintage work.  There was discussion regarding showcasing vintage motorcycles in Brian’s shop.
  2. Pat Wilkening, San Diego, CA. Pat shared that he has been lobbying to have gridding according to practice times at every event and was wondering if AHRMA could reach out to clubs who already doing this.  AHRMA may have to require transponder for each bike.

Pat said he has a couple of friends with 400s and 250s from the mid-80s, early 90s that run in Next Gen Lightweight, and that the cut off is at the bikes that went to upside down forks in the early 90s.   Some make less horsepower than right-side up forks.  He doesn’t understand why they can’t be run.

Arthur suggested that submitting a rules change proposal is the process to be used to make such a rule change.  He also noted that doing gridding based on practice times is complicated.  It maybe salient for modern bikes, but not so much on vintage bikes.

Brian Larrabure pointed out that there is no software that exists to do what Pat is recommending.  He did gridding based on practice times for the SOT1 class in 2017 and 2021 at Barber, which worked, but it took a significant effort to do so.  Dan May has taken on this task, but it will only be done for modern classes.  AHRMA will move towards getting racers into brackets.

Kelly addressed rule change proposals explaining that the board now gets the rules as the final verbiage should appear along with supporting documentation.  He feels comfortable with the committee reviews.

Luke Sayer recognized Pat for putting together the first AHRMA promoted race in the southwest.  Albert added that it is a major accomplishment for AHRMA.

Dewanna recognized Pat and Kerri Kress for the work they have been doing on trophies for Road Racing.

  1. Arthur provided an update on the NJMP trophies.  They apparently were delivered to the wrong address along with another delivery. They will be distributed as appropriate.
  2.  Ty Wilson, Alameda, CA.
    1. suggestions for Dick Mann Team Challenge
      1. Get venues out early before people commit to other things.
      2. Share contact information amongst the team members.
      3. There was frustration with scoring.
      4. If we’d known our team members earlier in the year it could make it easier to do the logistics and sharing resources.
      5. New location / no discipline announced.
      6. Schedule and text with locations, points spreadsheet.  It would be nice to see it with all the info.
    2. At Barber he was unable to get into the paddock.   Dewanna responded that AHRMA will address this issue and that AHRMA needs to make sure our members are aware of the procedure.  In the case of Barber, you should be able to drive into the paddock on a pit bike with an arm band, but not in a car without a parking pass.  You can also walk in with an arm band.
    3. At Topeka, for Off-Road we had a RV dump and impromptu bike wash.  It’s very popular to be able to dump RV tanks before driving home.  Ty offered contact info of an outhouse service to do that.  Arthur said that service will be offered in Daytona and will be looked into for future MotoFests.

Chairman Updates cont’d (Arthur Kowitz)

Vintage MX Venues

Vintage MX venues need to go back to grassy fields and that’s happening via regional coordinators and our national Off-Road Director.  We will have grass tracks for our MotoFest in Daytona, with a 135-acre grass field and substantial portion of woods.  We hope we can get the MX community to endorse this and get people to Florida to participate.  Arthur, Tony, Curt and Dewanna will be in Daytona this coming week to evaluate not only that but other events tied to the Daytona MotoFest.

BSA B50

After the Rules Change Proposal process was completed and reviewed, Brian called a meeting with almost every stakeholder in the class to discuss the eligibility of the BSA B50.  The bottom line is if you have a legitimate replica of an eligible bike, it’s eligible.  By handling the controversy in this fashion, he was able to smooth things out.

A ’71 bike will not be eligible to run in a class that is supposed to shut off in ’68.  For the 2023 race season, you will not be able to enter a B50 in Premier.  For a B50 Eligibility Request to be considered for approval, the bike must be an accurate replica of a premier era works bike with supporting documentation.

Secretary Reports (Kelly Shane)

Kelly put together several Google polls this year for various purposes.  Curt pointed out that Kelly was minimizing what he really contributes and thanked Kelly.

Executive Director (Curt Comer)

State of AHRMA

  • ED job has been very challenging as there are lot of tasks in the job description;
  • Cindy came on as Executive Administrator in 2019 and refined her role;
  • Dewanna devoted a lot of effort to admin stuff in their household;
  • Lisi Bratcher has joined the staff and is doing a lot of the back office work coming out of Curt’s office;
  • Dan May has come on board and helped us a lot with a variety of reporting and system integration needs;
  • Jennifer and Dan Thornton have come on board as our membership coordinators;
  • Arthur created the AHRMA response team which has taken the responsibility away from Curt.  This gives the AHRMA membership advocate team to resolve problems;
  • Curt is proud of where we are on the AHRMA MAG.  He wanted it to be a calling card, less of a newsletter, full of human interest stories, history, etc.
  • Kudos to Tony Paul, who has the Off-Road program pretty self-sufficient.  He’s doing contracts, settlements, and going to all the events.  VMX entries are up as a result of going to vintage friendly tracks;
  • As far as the CC program, Becky Hayes is running a good program;
  • Trials program participation is growing and we are seeing a cross over from other disciplines;
  • Dirt Track program has had Richard Brodock take the lead;
  • Having a Marketing infrastructure is starting to gain traction and show benefits.  Jim Doyle has taken on sponsorships and advertising as our Business Development Manager;
  • Paul Elledge is heading up our social media marketing;
  • Our press release machine with David Stark is making our press releases more professional;
  • Maggie has taken over our merchandising activities and the online store (AHRMA lifestyle, etc.);
  • Bookkeeping has been a challenge.  Maggie has volunteered to help clean it up.  We have come up with a draft charge of accounts. We have a plan to restate our financials, establish accrual accounting, implement cost accounting which will show P&L for specific events. Our goal is to go live with re-stated financials before end of this fiscal year so we can start a clean slate for the next fiscal year.  We are looking to engage a bookkeeping firm to take these efforts over as well;
  • Steve Hudson has taken the role of our official AHRMA race chaplain.  He’s been very busy taking care of members;
  • MotoFest – Curt became an AHRMA member when we had festival style events of the early 90s.  Barber is not our event.  We came up with the MotoFest concept, have had 2 this year and we are kicking off 2022 with Daytona.  For MotoFest we will participate in the gate revenue as part of our contract with venues.  We can grow reserves, do more for members, and increase salary for staff;
  • Communications – we have struggled due to work load challenges.  Cindy is now able to focus more closely on the communications requirements;
  • MotorsportReg – we took a product that wasn’t originally intended for membership management, and we’ve been able to make it into a tool that now works for us.  Between Hagerty’s support and MotorsportReg we now have a very nice product;
  • We are seeing growth in every area including Membership, Race Participation, MotoFest income, advertising in AHRMA MAG;
  • We had a hiccup when Tony and Faynisha stepped down and their replacement didn’t work out.  Faynisha continues to work Race Registration and does Control at select events.  For the second half of the year, we have had no official roadrace director. Dewanna and the roadrace team really stepped up.  There will be a smooth handoff to the next RR director;
  • We had some challenges when Curt came on board.  As a team we have come together and really made things happen.  This starts with the Executive Committee which meets weekly.  EC minutes are distributed to the trustees.  Arthur, Brian and Kelly have given so much.  This board of trustees has been tremendous.
  • Everything at AHRMA is positioned well for Curt to be able to step down, effective December 31, 2021, do a warm handoff and continue to contribute to the success of AHRMA going into the future.

MotoFests 2021 Updates (various)

  • Curt – At our first MotoFest at HMP, we lost $18k – Rain was the contributing factor. (considered the price of entry)
  • Laguna Seca, we ended in the black
  • For Daytona, our platforms are in place
    • Arthur stated that in the Daytona area, everyone is a motorcycle enthusiast.
    • We will be racing sidecars at Daytona for the first time ever.  John Ulrich is having a Team Hammer track day with CCS and Arthur has arranged to do a photo shoot of sidecars on the high banks during the event.  Peter Essaff organizing the sidecar riders.
    • As part of our contract with Daytona, we get all the back gate and half of the front gate.
    • Daytona is already abuzz. Arthur is looking to have everyone promote.
  • We will have Jim Doyle (HMP) and Loraine Crussell (Laguna Seca) again as MotoFest coordinators.
  • Rob Poole wanted to know why we lost money on HMP?
    • Curt: We had poor gate, and low attendance from Off-Road due to the weather issues.  The model for Off-Road is different than road racing and costs money to get the Off-Road venues designed and engineered.
    • We were unable to hit the ground running on marketing due to the unknowns of COVID, so we were late getting going on it.  For next year we’ll start marketing the event much earlier.
    • Brian mentioned that we’ve never released our RR schedule before December, and we released it before the 2021 Barber event for 2022.  Along with getting sponsors on board, in the future, we need contracts with venues no later than September, so we have enough time for our marketing/promotion efforts.
    • Curt added that at HMP we also had a track day on Thursday which was rained out and entry fees were refunded.
  • Rob asked how we can improve Laguna Seca?
    • Brian said we were also scheduled at the same time as IMS, and vendors were committed to IMS so we were unable to get the number of vendors we might otherwise have had.
    • AFS feels like Laguna Seca is like the Rolex – this is how Rolex started.
    • We’ll market at the MotoAmerica event the previous weekend.
    • Jim pointed out that for road racers, it’s a big deal to have a back-to-back with Laguna Seca (at the Ridge)

How to Continue Emphasizing Vintage Motorcycles?

Vintage Cup is working!  Arthur opened a brainstorming session, and the following are a few of the ideas that were introduced by trustees and members.

  • Larger trophies for vintage classes?
    • Kelly asked maybe a special vintage trophy might be worth looking at.
    • Brian pointed out that Kenny did special trophies for 500 Premier at Laguna Seca and other special venues.  If we have more special trophies specifically for vintage that may encourage more owners/riders to bring out their vintage bikes.
    • Jim said that he ordered special trophies for drag racing.
    • Brian asked if maybe we should roll it out for specific classes?
    • Luke Sayer said that perpetual trophies with previous champions are cool
    • Pat Wilkening asked if we can do a Luke Conner trophy (perpetual) similar to the special trophy for Vintage Cup
    • Terri Korn suggested that after doing the drag racing trophy, she was thinking that maybe we can make the trophies by having one big trophy to which you add plaques throughout the race season.  There was discussion on this idea.
    • Albert said we should look at the national championship, maybe use a piece of memorabilia for that class.
    • Arthur suggested we implement a pilot program for 2022, and Jim Korn volunteered to lead that effort.
    • Kevin added that we may want to expand it and do groups of classes, like GP, Formula, Sportsman, etc.
    • Brian believes AFS can find corporate trophy sponsorship.
    • Al Andenburg suggested doing higher level trophy only at MotoFests (like Gypsy Tour).
    • Arthur asked why we are not using Vintage Cup concept in Off-Road?
      • Kelly said he, Tony and Albert will move forward with it for 2022.
  • Stepped entry fees: classes we want more participation cost less than full classes.
    • Although here may be an issue implementing this with Off-Road, Albert feels like that can be incentivized through MSR.
    • Kelly mentioned that we have been incentivizing racers for pre-entries over post-entries, but Off-Road racers don’t care.
    • Jim suggested comping Off-Road racers who cross over as first-time vintage road racers.
  • In mid-70s Arthur was racing a Rickman Z1 and attended to a club race in Colorado.  There was a required bike show during lunch.  Maybe we should have a Vintage bike show at lunch time?
    • Curt – This would work on Off-Road as well.
    • Brian – we can’t do at MotoFests or Barber because of other activities at lunch.
    • Kelly – that would work at Off-Road events with defined intermission periods.
    • Albert – “cool bike award” during tech inspection.
    • Arthur – AHRMA 2008 “Best Appearing Racebike”
    • Kevin – Fan’s choice award
  • Curt asked how do we get retired bikes back out on the grids?  How can we engage a younger audience and incentivize folks to bring them back?  Make it prestigious and honor the owners.  Example, Dale Coffman provides bikes to Wes Orloff, Rob McKeever provides bikes to Alex McLean.
    • Debbie and Rob suggested a sponsor of the year award.  Curt asked if we would honor them at the awards ceremony?
    • Jim Korn suggested we get input from our membership.
    • Kelly will do a poll to get ideas from the membership.

Lunch break 12:15pm-1:15pm

Arthur re-convened following lunch at 12:19pm

Use of helmet mounted cameras in all AHRMA events (establish standard rule)

In June of 2021 member Roger Preston asked the ED why Off-Road racers are allowed to use helmet mounted cameras. The question was discussed at the EC and placed on the agenda for the Barber meeting. Kelly outlined the use of helmet cameras in Off Road and how the potential safety aspects differ from RR.  Helmet mounted cameras are disallowed in Roadrace rule 3.4.2 j).

There was conjecture in the racing community after Michael Schumacher’s skiing accident that having a helmet mounted camera may have contributed to his injuries. Although there was no evidence supporting that, almost every motorsport association in the world has banned helmet mounted cameras including the AMA. AHRMA doesn’t say Off-road competitors are allowed to do it, we just don’t say.  This is for Off-road only since it is already restricted for road racing. Since the AMA is considered the “standard of care” as far as the legal system in the US is concerned, it is in AHRMA’s interest to have a helmet cam rule.

  • Kevin pointed out that we can add the helmet rule to rule 3.3.14, so that it would apply to all AHRMA competitors.
  • Brian said that the helmet is not designed to take a point load which a camera mounted on a helmet has a potential of doing.
  • Jim asserted that body mounted cameras must also be addressed as they are not allowed in RR. After discussion the board decided that body mounted cameras are not as much concern in OR as the RR rule is focused on tethering the camera so it cannot become track debris.
  • Kelly will draft a rule and present to the BoT for email vote to go into the 2022 rulebook by next Friday (October 22). The rule will be provisional for the 2022 season only and will be resubmitted during the 2022 Rule Proposal Process to provide for member comment.
  • Arthur is also going to word his own version to collaborate with Kelly.

Open session ended at 1:15pm.